Old Master Quan's mood visibly sank.
His face was haggard beyond measure, and the signs of age were plainly evident on a High-Grade Gene Evolver.
Old Master Quan said in a low voice, "To obtain this video recording, our Quan Family paid an enormous price..."
"Children are all debts... Sigh..."
Quan Jiuyi could not hear her old father's lament. Her uncertain, startled gaze fixed straight on the Virtual Display Screen before her.
The Virtual Display Screen showed a completely unfamiliar place.
It seemed to be out in the wilderness, at dusk, with not a soul around.
Layers upon layers of sunset clouds hung in the sky, so heavy they seemed ready to fall to the ground.
Countless rays of morning glow, rich colors layered over one another—shattered gold, dark crimson, orange-yellow, pink-purple, deep blue, vermilion—interwove and dyed the emerald grassland into an abstract canvas.
The emperor, who still looked quite young at the time, wore a white long robe embroidered with black lotuses. Holding an exquisite dark-gold kesi swaddling cloth in his arms, he stood before a carved pillar.
The pillar was probably around one and a half meters tall, reaching the emperor's chest.
At the top of the pillar was a lotus carved from stone.
The lotus was in bloom, like a basin.
Sparkling water rippled within the basin formed by the stone lotus.
The emperor raised the swaddling cloth, revealing the infant's face within. Facing the sunset, he prayed with a devout expression.
After the emperor in ceremonial robes finished praying, he carefully opened the infant's swaddling cloth, exposing her unhealed umbilical cord. Then he placed her naked body into the water-filled lotus basin and dipped her in it.
He picked the baby girl up again and wrapped her body in a snow-white towel.
Then a man who